|
|
|
[A potpourri of cultural observations, thoughts & trends] HEROES OR JUST WANNABES?
"Start counting late 20th century heroes on your fingers.
Most of us quickly notch off Nelson Mandela or Mother Theresa,
then go through a painful period of head-scratching. Where have
all the heroes gone?
CELEBRATING GOD'S WORK:
In and around the InterVarsity family this past school year,
- staff reported 1,672 new Christians.
- 29,620 students participated in InterVarsity's core ministries.
- 3, 035 graduate students were involved (amazing growth over
the past several years).
- 20 Global Projects placed 352 students and staff in ministry
around the world.
- IVP® took six spots in Christianity Today's "Top
25" list of books for the year.
- 2100 Productions and Student Leadership journal both received
awards.
 [From the 1996-97 Annual Ministry Report] |
|
Our society is much more comfortable with
the notion of celebrity. Though a celebrity may have some exceptional
ability or even virtue which draws them into the public eye, the
essence of celebrity is reflexive: an individual is famous for
being famous. Celebrities are not usually revered for 'greatness
of soul.' Though we may be tempted to envy them in their wealth
or looks or fame, it would be strange indeed if we wanted to be
like them as though they were heroes.
"So why the 'wannabe' phenomenon? If you're looking for a
wannabe Elvis or Madonna, look no further. All around the world
you'll find them: they wear the clothes, walk the walk, and talk
the talk.
"But they're not Elvis, and they can't inhabit his life,
nor do they aspire to his paranoias, his binge eating or his drug
abuse. They don't actually want to be like him; they want to be
like his public image, like the idea of Elvis. Madonna wannabes
don't aspire to be Italian-American divorced mothers who can't
go anywhere without bodyguards; they want to be strong, irreverent,
empowered, sexually predatory women who keep changing the way
they look. The reality you can keep: it's the hyperreality they
desire.
STEP OUT IN CLASS!
"Today's college students are in desperate need of at
least three dispositions usually associated with religious belief:
a tragic view of life, grounding in a particular set of ethical
maxims, and a sense of wonder. It is not that I long for students
to appear in my classroom who can cite chapter and verse from
the Bible in defense of positions on which they will never reflect.
But I would not mind an occasional argument, backed up by familiarity
with at least one historical tradition, in support of a passionately
held viewpoint in something-anything." [Alan Wolfe of Boston
U. in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/19/97] |
|
"Think of the Spice Girls: a designer pop group of five young
women whose characters are largely unknown. They are the achievement
of business people, not the group members. They always appear
in character, playing their assigned roles. 'I'll tell you what
I want, what I really, really want,' they sing. 'I wanna be a
Spice Girl.' 'Who do you think you are?' sing the Spice Girls.
The implicit answer: 'Not the person I am 'cause I wanna be you.'"
[Norman Fraser, adapted from UCCF's magazine, NB, Oct-Nov
97]
THE UNIVERSE IS SO CUTE!
"Isn't this just the cutest little universe you've ever seen?"
says Barbara Ehrenreich in Time (8/25/97). "After
centuries of technological striving, we finally got to Earth's
strange sibling Mars-and found rocks [we] named Yogi, Scooby Doo
and Barnacle Bill.
Someone at NASA must have issued a firm directive:
'Keep it cuddly, guys. We don't want Mars to seem like, you know,
outer space.' But our desire to make the awesome adorable is spoiling
the mysteries of life. [So we are] insisting, in our pathetic
provincialism, that there is nothing out there-either in the mythic
past or the distant reaches of space-that can't be labeled, depicted,
and potentially marketed by the late 20th-century American entertainment
culture. . . .
Duh, Bill:
"Just in terms of allocations of time resources, religion
is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on
a Sunday morning."--Bill Gates in Time, 1/13/97 |
|
We do it all the time, of course. Watch one of
our schlockier televangelists, and you'll be introduced to an
affable deity eager to be enlisted as your personal genie. Yes,
the Great Spinner of Galaxies, Digger of Black Holes is available,
for a suitable 'love offering,' to relieve the itch of hemorrhoids.
. . . At least the Hebrews had the good sense to make Yahweh unnameable
and unseeable except in the flames of a burning bush-a permanent
Mystery." [Quoted by Martin Marty in Context, January
1, 1998]
|
